Context No. 674 of 4322 · 1 Corinthians
Context · Reflection
1 Corinthians 8:1-6: in context
1Now concerning things sacrificed to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2But if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he doesn’t yet know as he ought to know. 3But anyone who loves God is known by him. 4Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no other God but one. 5For though there are things that are called “gods”, whether in the heavens or on earth—as there are many “gods” and many “lords”— 6yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him.
The Corinthians have written to Paul with questions, and this chapter takes up one of them: whether Christians may eat meat that had been offered to idols. In a pagan city most of the meat for sale had passed through a temple first, so this was an everyday matter. Some in the church had it worked out. They knew an idol is nothing and there is only one God, so the meat could not be tainted; they were free to eat. Paul does not argue with the knowledge. He argues with what the knowledge was doing to them.
Knowledge puffs up, he writes, but love builds up. If anyone thinks he has knowledge, he does not yet know as he ought to know; and the person who loves God is the one known by God. Paul has quietly changed the measure. The question is not who has the facts straight but who is being built up, and being right, held without love, only inflates the one who holds it. He grants the whole creed they stand on, that for us there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, and then spends the rest of the chapter on the brother whose conscience their correctness would wound.
Paul would not let being right count for much if it built no one up. Where am I most sure I am correct, and least interested in whether it helps anyone?
Sources
- 1 Corinthians 8:7-13: where the argument goes, love limiting the free use of knowledge for the weaker brother
- Romans 14: Paul's parallel on food, the strong and the weak, and not wounding a brother's conscience
- 1 Corinthians 8:6 with Deuteronomy 6:4: one God the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ, an early confession set on the Shema